Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/182

 golden witch-liquid, stood in our tiny crumpled Venetian tumblers, their distorted little bellies flecked with specks of gold. There were occasional callers but no other resident guests than ourselves at the villa and Edith, as was her custom, left us a good deal alone. On the day of our arrival, indeed, she disappeared after luncheon and only returned two days later, when she explained that she had gone to visit a friend at Pisa. We usually met her at dinner when she came out to the garden-table, floating in white crepe de chine, with a turban of turquoise blue or some vivid brilliant green, but during the day she was seldom visible. She ate her breakfast alone on the balcony above our bedroom, then read for an hour or two. What she did after, one never knew, save as she told of it.

Meanwhile, Peter and I wandered about, inspecting the shops on the Ponte Vecchio, tramping through the old palaces and galleries. Several times Peter paused; he hesitated for the longest time, I think, before the David of Donatello, that exquisite soft bronze of the Biblical lad, nude but for his wreathed helmet, standing in his adolescent slender beauty with one foot on the head of the decapitated giant. He carries a sword and over his face flutters a quizzical expression. Indeed, what Walter Pater said of the face of Monna Lisa might equally well apply to the face of David. So remarked Peter, explaining that the quality of both the David and Leonardo's darling was the same,